Volvo Group and NVIDIA Partnered to develop Advanced AI Platform for Autonomous Vehicles

Volvo Group and NVIDIA announced their long-term partnership to develop the AI-powered scalable Autonomous Driving System for commercial vehicles and machines.

According to the announcement, Volvo group is prioritizing automation and this partnership will accelerate the speed of the platform development for the company. As a part of the partnership, both companies will co-locate their resources in Gothenburg, Sweden and Santa Clara, California.

Executive Opinion

President and CEO of the Volvo Group, Martin Lundstedt,  "Automation creates real-life benefits for both our customers and the society in terms of safety, energy efficiency and as a consequence productivity. We continue to gradually introduce automated applications in the entire spectrum of automation, from driver support systems to fully autonomous vehicles and machines. This partnership with NVIDIA is an important next step on that journey."

NVIDIA founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, said, "Trucking is the world’s largest network – a network that through online shopping puts practically anything, anywhere in the world, quickly within our reach. The latest breakthroughs in AI and robotics bring a new level of intelligence and automation to address the transportation challenges we face. We are thrilled to partner with Volvo Group to reinvent the future of trucking."

AI-powered scalable Autonomous Driving System

To achieve complex decision making for autonomous vehicles, the system will use NVIDIA’s end-to-end artificial intelligence platform for training, simulation and in-vehicle computing says the announcement.

The partnership includes accelerated computing technology in the datacenter for training deep neural networks; large-scale simulation for hardware-in-the-loop testing and validation of autonomous vehicle systems. Eventually, Volvo will deploy NVIDIA DRIVE platform in the vehicle. The platform will run full software stack for 360-degree sensor processing, mapping and path planning, notes the announcement.

NVIDIA’s full software stack includes software for sensor processing, perception, map localization and path planning. The announcement identifies possible autonomous driving applications like freight transport, refuse and recycling collection, public transport, construction, mining, forestry etc.

The announcement noted that the planned Autonomous Driving System will safely handle fully autonomous driving on public roads and highways.